


this is not a moment, it's the movement

by magicandlight



Series: The States [2]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers, Statetalia
Genre: American Revolution, Gen, Revolution, Rewrite of Older Story, Statetalia (Hetalia)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-10
Updated: 2019-05-10
Packaged: 2020-02-29 14:25:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18780088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magicandlight/pseuds/magicandlight
Summary: He takes a sip. "Alright. What's the issue now?"All of them start talking at once."One at a time!""The issue is these taxes," Will says vehemently after the rest had gone quiet.





	this is not a moment, it's the movement

_Look around, look around at how lucky we are to be alive right now!_  
_-The Schuyler Sisters, Hamilton_

**VA-March 22, 1765**  
All his children are grown enough to take care of themselves, to live amongst their people. Alfred feels a bit like a mother whose children have all moved away and doesn't know what to do with herself.

He still can't help but feel a little tired when he wakes up to find all of them in his kitchen. They're talking bordering on arguing, but they quiet down when Alfred comes in.

Alfred sighs. To get all of them together required extensive planning, which means either  Samantha  or  Will had been writing letters again.

Or both, he decides, looking at both of their careful poker faces.

Alfred makes tea using the kettle that one of them has heated already.

He takes a sip. "Alright. What's the issue now?"

All of them start talking at once.

"One at a time!"

"The issue is these  _taxes_ ," Will says vehemently after the rest had gone quiet.

"The taxes aren't even that high, Will-"

Sam cuts him off. "It isn't about the amount, it's that it's without representation. We're being taxed  _without_ representation!"

They start talking over each other again.

Alfred sighs and pours another cup of tea.

 **VA-May 15, 1765**  
Alfred wakes up to the feeling of anger pulsing heavy in his veins. If he tried, he could separate the feelings back to the sources, the people or his children, but he doesn't bother. Instead, he goes into town.

All anyone is talking about is the new Quartering Act, and can't tell whether the anger is his or the people's anymore.

There isn't much difference, these days.

 **Williamsburg, VA-May 29, 1765**  
As long as they stay silent and stay out of the way, the twin representations of Virginia are allowed to sit in on House of Burgess meetings. Well, as long as Elizabeth is wearing  Wes's  clothes. A dress would be too conspicuous.

They still aren't sure what Mr. Henry had done to get them in.

They both listen in rapt attention to his speech on the Resolves.

Elizabeth  flinches back when the opposition cuts Mr. Henry off, a single word repeated and overlapping. " _Treason!_ "

Patrick Henry pauses, seemingly looking at the two of them. Then he speaks, voice damning: "If this be treason, make the most of it!"

 **VA- May 31, 1765**  
Elizabeth and Wesley come visit Alfred the most, which is probably one because they're the closest.

They come to visit on the last day of May, Elizabeth with papers in a satchel. She hands them to Alfred with the same pleased expression she had as a child when she would give him a drawing she had done.

"They were passed two days ago." Wesley tells him.

Alfred raised his eyebrows as he read. There was nothing that wasn't true, but he could already imagine Arthur's face when he saw it. He'd call it treason, probably. Lately, he'd been calling everything from boycotts to smuggling treason. "Patrick Henry?"

Elizabeth smiled, a barely-there curve of her mouth. "He waited until the conservatives in the assembly were gone to submit them."

Alfred snorted and looked at the title again. "Well, the Virginia Resolves has a nice ring to it, at least."

 **Boston, MA- August 14, 1765**  
The first slash trailing over her shoulders is unexpected. It feels like fire, burning her skin and all she can do is wait for it to go away.

She is on her knees, sobbing from the pain.  Foster  is half frantic beside her, speaking rapid, panicked French. She can't translate it at the moment, so she just lets the foreign words that as familiar as English wash over her.

She endures the pain. If this is what rebellion against tyranny costs, then she'll pay it.

They take the form of whip scars, and Sam laughs when she sees them in the mirror.

 **Boston, MA- August 26, 1765**  
Sam expects the pain this time. The last whip-slash was from rioting. The people were rioting again, therefore it was only to be expected that she'd get hurt again.

She bears the pain and keeps quiet about it so she doesn't worry Foster.

 **New York, NY- October 7, 1765**  
Sam has to say she's a little disappointed at the turnout to the Stamp Act Congress. Only nine colonies out of thirteen send delegates. It's probably the most she could have gotten. Still, it would have been nice to have everyone there.

Daniel looks out of place without Scarlett and  David flanking him, and the absence of both Virginias is glaringly obvious.  Cam isn't here, so neither is  Monty.

 **New York, NY- October 19, 1765**  
The Congress adopts the Declaration of Rights and Grievances, and someone- no one is quite sure which colony suggested it afterward- decides to celebrate this by getting incredibly drunk.

At some point, possibly after three-fourths of a bottle of wine, Sam does her British accent impression and begins mocking England mercilessly. 

"You're the only Southerner who showed up,"  Brooke  muses to Daniel. Will thinks she drank an entire bottle of wine by herself and then started a new one, and he's not really sure how she's coherent. And then she kisses him on the mouth, chaste and over in two seconds, and maybe she's not as coherent as he thought she was. "Thank you for not leaving us Southerner-less." She frowns. "Southern-less? South-less? Nicky, which one would it be?"

Nicky  doesn't even blink as he pries the bottle from Brooke. "None of the above. You're drunk."

Will is sort of wondering if his siblings have taken up drugs as a hobby. Daniel, for what it's worth, seems very calm about everything, but that might also be the alcohol. "You know, a normal thank you would have sufficed."

Will snorts before he can help it and Brooke sticks her tongue out at him. 

 **MD- November 23, 1765**  
"Some of my people are refusing to pay the tax,"  Scott  tells Ginny as she sews, working on taking in some socialite's dress. Her job sort of sucked in Scott's opinion, and it felt like whenever he talked to her now she was busy trying to sew a basket of crap the tailor had sent home with her. It didn't even pay well. 

Ginny smiles. "That's good. It's practically the only way we can protest."

 **VA- December 24, 1765**  
Sometimes, the colonies give him headaches. 

Like now. It's Christmas Eve, and they're all ranting about the Quartering Act. "Brooke-"

"The Quartering Act is stupid, we aren't at war and my people don't have the money to house all these British soldiers-"

"Brooke."

"Why do we even need an army, we didn't have one before the war but now that we've kicked the French out, suddenly we have such great need for a standing army? It's complete-

" _New York!_ "

Brooke stops talking, but even Will looks a little impressed. Jesus, the two of them getting along. 

Alfred sighs. "The Quartering Act is law. You just have to deal with it for now."

Brooke gives him a flat, unimpressed expression. Despite the fact that she's never met Netherlands, Alfred blames him for that one. "No."

Alfred raises an eyebrow at her. 

"My assembly has already decided. We're not going to quarter troops, or pay for them either."

Alfred notes the use of  _we're_. Since he's seeing shocked faces around the table, it looks like Brooke's speaking for her people. 

 **VA- January, 1766**  
Alfred suppresses a sigh when he opens up the door to see Arthur darkening his doorstep. At least he came after Christmas. If Arthur had come before, they would have had problems. Teenager-shaped problems. (For a moment, Alfred entertains the idea of springing the colonies on Arthur. It's probably not a good idea, though, so he disregards it.)

Somehow, Alfred always manages to forget how much Arthur looks like Samantha. Or rather, how much Samantha looks like Arthur.

"This rioting is childish, Alfred, we both know it-"

Alfred crosses his arms across his chest. "And yet the people have a point, Arthur. What is it your Bill of Rights says, again?"

He's practically quoting Samantha.

Arthur shoots him a look. "I don't know what's got into you. You get one tax and suddenly you're writing this Declaration of Rights and Grievances? You're paying less in taxes than my people, for God's sake."

Alfred smiles sadly. "It's not about the taxes, Arthur, and we both know it."

 **New York, NY- January 1766**  
"I'm probably going to get sick when they take my charter or whatever," Brooke says. There isn't a drop of remorse or regret in her voice. To her, getting sick is worth not having to quarter the soldiers. Nicky's sure that she's balanced precariously on the open window sill now because she knows she'll be too sick to risk falling later.

Nicky looks at the window towards the Harbor. He can't see the ships, but he can almost-maybe feel them. It's close enough to his own border.

"Fifteen hundred troops," He mutters, and Brooke almost-maybe shudders. 

 **VA- January 1765**  
Arthur leaves barely a week later, muttering something about Parliament, and Alfred lets him.

They both know he hasn't suddenly changed his mind. 

 **VA- February 11, 1766**  
Alfred doesn't have favorites, but Ginny and Wesley are his eldest. 

They might have been Arthur's favorites if he knew they existed, but Alfred doesn't like to think about what might have been. 

The differences between both sets of twins never fail to amaze him. Where the Carolinas were matched in nearly every way, identical to the untrained eye, Ginny and Wesley are the opposite. Where Ginny's hair falls in soft curls, Wesley's hair is just-rolled-out-of-bed messy. Ginny is perfectly put together, matching everything, while Wesley's tie is only half done. Wesley is calm and irreverent where Ginny is stubborn. 

"England isn't going to be happy," Ginny says with just the slightest hint of a drawl. She hadn't been down to the southern edge of her colony in a while. Wesley just rolls his eyes like  _of course, he isn't_. 

Alfred thinks about watching her colony declare the stamp act unconstitutional today. "No, he isn't going to be happy."

 **VA- March 1766**  
"I'm pretty sure that if you need to pass an act to say that you can pass acts, then you can't actually pass acts," Will drawls.  _He's getting tall_ , Alfred muses. It's weird to not have to look down at him. 

Alfred blinks at him and sighs. "You said acts too many times in that sentence for it to make any sense."

Honestly, Alfred was wondering if it would make him a bad parent to lock the doors and avoid all of his children for a week or two till they were less agitated about the Declaratory Act. 

"The Declaratory Act is stupider than all the other acts they've passed, which is saying something. If Parliament has to pass an act to say that they have the authority to pass on acts on us, then-"

"They don't really have the authority, I know, Will, but what are we going to do about it?"

Will shut his mouth, and Alfred resisted the urge to sigh again. 

 **New York, NY- August 1766**  
Colonists and soldiers fight in the streets over the Quartering Act, and Brooke's nose won't stop bleeding. 

 _That's probably not a good thing, right?_  Brooke thinks, wracking her memory for anything she read about the subject. 

She can't remember it, and if she can't remember it she never read it, so she digs the piles of books she hasn't read with one hand, a dishcloth held against her nose with the other. 

She'd known that refusing to obey the Quartering Act would have repercussions, but somehow she hadn't thought it'd be quite like this.

 **NY- June 1767**  
Brooke swears that she's caught every sickness all at once. She can barely keep food down, and she's constantly wracked with coughing fits. Her nose keeps bleeding, and she isn't sure why. 

Shutting down a government of a personification nation was like stripping an immune system. They got horribly sick.

Her mattress dipped as Nicky as climbed in beside her.

"You'll catch whatever I've got." She warns.

Nicky scoffs. "What, rebellion?"

She laughs, even though her throat hurts.

Nicky pulls her back down when her laughter dissolves into a coughing fit.

Brooke hums, curling closer to his warmth. They'd done this so many times when they were children, though back then usually it was Brooke climbing into Nicky's bed to comfort him.

She's almost glad she's too sick to do much of anything. She'd run out of paint a couple of days ago and her paper was running low, and she couldn't replace anything, not with the new taxes. She'd had Nicky hide the rest of her art supplies. 

It means that even when she feels a little better she's twitchy and restless and a bit like an addict that's been cut off.

She always feels angry, though, and she can't tell what's hers and what's the people's anymore. 

 **Boston, MA- February 1768**  
While Sam Adams writes the circular letter, Samantha writes her own letter. She doesn't care if she comes off as desperate anymore. 

She's been struggling to do her own bandages because she doesn't want Foster to worry.

Her hands shake as she addresses them to her siblings. 

 **VA- April 1768**  
Ginny drops two letters onto the table in front of Alfred the second she comes in, while Wes slips into his seat and promptly shoves a biscuit in his mouth. Ginny smacks the back of his head without even looking, and Wes just rolls his eyes as he pulls his other one in half so he can slather it in strawberry jam. 

Alfred feels like he's mother-henning them, always inviting the twins over for meals, but if he didn't see any of his children on a regular basis he'd probably go insane.  

"We met the courier on the way here. One's from Samantha, probably about the circular letter, the other is from England, probably also about the circular letter." Ginny tells them as she takes the butter knife from Wes, delicately spreading the strawberry jam over her own biscuit. 

Alfred reads the one from Samantha first, and frowns at the almost desperate tone of the letter. "Was yours like this?"

"All desperate?" Wes nods. "Yeah. I guess they hit her pretty hard."

Alfred is still frowning when he gets to Arthur's letter. 

Ginny and Wes both raise their eyebrows when Alfred crumbles the letter up and tosses it at the trash bin. 

 **Boston, MA- May 1768**  
Samantha frowns when Foster comes in. "You're back ear-"

"There's a warship in the harbor," He gasps out. He must have run all the way back. 

Samantha feels her blood run cold. "What?"

"There's a British warship in the harbor. It's got  _fifty_  canons." 

Her back hurts, the painful sting of one of her cuts reopening. 

Samantha inhales shallowly, and deals with the pain when Foster hugs her. 

 **Boston, MA- June 1768**  
They all feel that  _tug_ , sometimes. The one that says  _this person will be important, this person is history in the making_. 

Maybe that is why, despite the pain throbbing down her back, Samantha walks a little faster to catch up with John Hancock. 

(He doesn't look at her and just  _know_ , like Ginny's dear Washington or like her Adams', but he  _believes_  and in the end that's all that matters.)

His actions will have consequences, ones involving British retaliation, but for now Samantha smiles and says, "It seems rather ironic to try and seize a ship named Liberty," and he laughs. 

 **Boston, MA- July 1768**  
July brings two more scars, small and curving around the delicate tips of her shoulder blades, one on each side.

Samantha grits her teeth and bears the pain. 

 **New York, NY- August 1768**  
Even at her most obnoxious, there is something to be said about Brooke and the strength she carries. 

"You're too skinny," Samantha says after a second.

Brooke's eyes narrow dangerously.

Brooke has always been skinny- she'd spent her childhood on the edge of starvation and never grew out of the boniness- but the damage done by the Quartering Act and the Restraining Act were clear. If Samantha thought her cheekbones were prominent before, now they were sharp enough to cut. Any softness in Brooke's face was gone, and all that was left in her long, slender limbs was bone and hard-earned muscle. She was beautiful as always, but now she beautiful in a vicious, harsh way. 

Brooke's mouth thins, and then: "I was sick."

"I can see that."

"Are you here to discuss anything of importance or just my current appearance?"

Sam's face turns serious. "I'm here to talk about boycotting English goods to protest that  _stupid_  act."

Brooke's eyes are bright, burning blue. "Well, then, come in."

 **Boston, MA- September 1768**  
When the English warships sail into Boston Harbor and troops take up residence within the city, Samantha searches through the attic until she finds her rifle. 

They all knew how to shoot. They'd lived out in the country with coyotes and wolves and worse, and eventually Alfred had taught them.

The rifle is old and in need of cleaning, and it takes her a moment to remember how to take it apart. 

She has the pieces spread out over the table when Foster comes in. He pauses a moment like he's going to say something before he shakes his head and goes upstairs. 

 **PA- March 1769**  
"Do you think Parliament will repeal the Townshend Acts?" Will asks quietly. 

Brooke takes a careful sip of her tea, considering.

He'd asked her over to talk about the boycotts, and it was a little odd to be sitting with her on his front porch, looking at the city.

Despite sharing over two hundred miles of border with Brooke, they don't talk all that often. Mostly because it always ended in a fight. 

Will couldn't bring himself to fight with her today. She still looked sickly, overly thin and pale compared to her normal tan. 

Brooke swallows, and looks down at her teacup. "I think the real question isn't whether or not they'll repeal it, but what the cost of convincing them to do it will be."

 **VA- May 1769**  
Ginny paces, Strawberry circling around her feet every so often. 

 _It's a miracle Ginny hasn't tripped over her yet_ , Wes thinks. 

"They can't just- dissolve the House of Burgess!"

"They just did."

Ginny whirls to face him, nearly tripping over Strawberry in the process. "Then we'll boycott British goods." The words are firm even if her tone is unsure.

Wes smiles. 

 **Newport, RI- July 1769**  
Out of all of them,  Adam  is the one founded the most out of rebellion. 

Adam remembers vividly how angry Samantha was after  _Liberty_  was seized. Especially when the Brits refused to return it after the smuggling charges on Hancock were dropped. 

Even more so when she found out the ship was being refitted to serve as a Royal Navy ship, that they had renamed it the HMS _Liberty,_ and that they were going to use it to patrol for customs violations.

 _The British have pushed too far this time_ , Adam thinks. They've towed two ships over from Connecticut today and harassed a captain. 

Adam isn't surprised at all when his people burn the HMS  _Liberty_ , just as Samantha's laughter when she finds out doesn't surprise him.

 **VA- October 1769**  
The boycotts spread, and now seven out of thirteen colonies are openly boycotting British goods. 

Alfred isn't surprised when Arthur sends word that he'll be making the trip over soon.

 **NY- January 1770**  
It's a testament to how many nosebleeds Brooke has had that she just sighs when red splatters onto her sketchbook. 

She hadn't even felt it start bleeding, or noticed it dripping down her face. 

She frowns at her sketch. It's ruined now, and the blood has soaked through to the next page as well which means she'll have to rip two pages out. 

Brooke sighs again. Another fight between the Sons of Liberty and the redcoats, probably. 

 **Boston, MA- February 22, 1770**  
The boy's death leaves a scar that stretches across her back. 

He was eleven years old. 

"What was his name." 

Sam Adams looks at her, and whatever he sees makes his own face go hard. "Christopher Seider."

"And the customs man has been arrested?"

"Yes."

"And the funeral?"

"I'm arranging for it."

Samantha thinks about Foster, about how he'd still been hiding from nightmares in her room at eleven, the way he had moved like a newborn deer, clumsy and unsteady with all his new height. 

She feels sick. 

"Tell me when it is. I'd like to go."

Sam Adams gives her a bitter, weak smile. "I'll send a messenger once it's decided."

 **Boston, MA- March 5, 1770**  
The people of Boston are angry, have been angry for  _years,_ but now the city is occupied by soldiers and a boy is dead. 

All that anger leads to a crowd raging against redcoats, snowballs and stones thrown, insults hurled. Eleven shots are fired. Eleven men injured. Three dead immediately.

The scar spreads over her shoulders and over her side, curling lazily around her breast to her heart, and anger burns Samantha from the inside out. 

 **VA- April 1770**  
Arthur keeps his word and arrives in April. 

Alfred knows he's heard about the Boston Massacre already, but Arthur only crosses his arms. "They're repealing the Townshend Acts. Are you happy now?" He spits out. 

Alfred narrows his eyes. "It's only a partial repeal."

Arthur's jaw ticks. 

Alfred doesn't say anything. He's sat through enough of Ginny's silent treatments that silence no longer bothers him. 

Finally: "They only retaliated! The Bostonians were throwing snowballs with rocks-"

"Oh, eye for an eye!" Alfred snarks before thinking. "It's only fair that when someone throws a snowball with a stone in it at you, you shoot them dead!" 

Funny, that he's throwing Samantha's words back at Arthur.

"Do you know what they're calling it?" Alfred shouts. "Do you know?"

"Oh, please, enlighten me," Arthur snaps sarcastically. 

Alfred thinks sarcasm sits better on Samantha and Ginny. "A massacre!"

"It's hardly a massacre, it was only what- five people?"

"It doesn't matter how many people it was! British Soldiers killed five Americans!"

Arthur goes silent. 

And then, "They are not your people. You are a mere colony. You are  _mine_. These people are  _mine_."

"Can you even  _feel_  them anymore, Arthur?" Alfred asks viciously. 

A slap echoes through the room. 

Alfred's head is still turned, hair covering his eyes when Arthur speaks again. " _Do not_  disrespect me, boy."

Alfred doesn't even choose to acknowledge that as Arthur brushes by him. 

Alfred picks his saddlebag off the coatrack.

"Where exactly do you think you're going?"

"Out," Alfred responds, and makes sure to slam the door behind him hard enough to rattle the frame when he leaves.

 **Boston, MA- October 1770**  
"Why are you  _defending_  them?" Samantha asks. 

John Adams sighs. "Samantha. Do you truly believe that these men don't deserve a fair trial? Even if they are British soldiers?" He looks at her with a faint look of disappointment. "If you say yes, then you haven't learned from your own past."

Samantha's mouth goes dry. He was talking about Salem. 

Samantha tried not to think about Salem, about the hysteria and the trials. About the smell of crops rotting and the sound of the cows wandering around. About the girls of Salem screaming in the courtroom and the absolute certainty that none of the people deserved death. The bruise that had marked her throat for months.

She was no better than that if she refused the right to a fair trial.

Samantha doesn't look at him. "They deserve a fair trial," She mutters quietly. "Even if they killed five men."

 **Boston, MA-** **October 4, 1770**  
He's scared of what rebellion means for all of them and at the end of his rope when he goes to Sam that night.

She should tell him they're both too old for this, but instead, she lifts up the quilt so he can climb into her bed.

Sam says nothing about the way he's shaking from his latest nightmare, and in turn, he doesn't ask her about her scars when she turns onto her back and winces softly.

 **Newport, RI- February 17, 1772**  
Adam can't remember the last time he felt this angry. 

The British have violated his charter. They've sent the trial to Boston, ignoring the part in his charter where all arrests within Rhode Island must be tried in Rhode Island.

He thinks he understands how Samantha must feel all the time now.

 **Newport, RI- June 1772**  
_Gaspee_  runs aground. 

Adam bitterly hopes it's damaged. Its captain has done nothing but cause trouble. 

Adam doesn't put any more thought to it until one of the Sons of Liberty knocks at his door. 

He smiles when Adam opens the door. "We're going to burn  _Gaspee_. I thought you'd like to come."

Which is how Adam finds himself in a rowboat at dawn. 

They set the crew ashore because they aren't murderers, and then they set  _Gaspee_  on fire. 

Dawn breaks as  _Gaspee_  burns down to the waterline, and Adam thinks it's almost beautiful. 

 **Boston, MA- September 1772**  
"There's a five hundred pound reward on my head," Adam announces. He sounds a little dazed. 

Connie  nods. "Plus a charge of treason against the crown." 

"Plus a charge of treason against the crown," Adam echoes quietly. 

Connie quiets for a moment after Adam says it. "Well, not  _specifically_  on your head. On all the Gaspee raiders."

Samantha smirks, eyes sparkling. "Perhaps you should talk to Nicky about it. He's always been rather anti-England. Maybe he'll find it attractive."

Adam throws a tea biscuit at her head.

 **VA- March 1773**  
"The House of Burgesses have appointed an eleven-member committee of correspondence," Ginny tells Alfred proudly when she and Wes come over for lunch. 

"Like Samantha's," Wes adds just to see the flicker of annoyance on Ginny's face. 

(She had been a tinge upset that Samantha had done it first.)

Alfred smiles. "Good. We need a united front."

 **VA- May 1773**  
Wes watches as his sister frowns at her tea. 

"Dutch tea tastes cheap," She says mournfully, and he laughs. 

"Better than British tea if Parliament's going to use it to make us agree to their acts."

 **VA- 1773**  
Alfred reads letters from his children- Daniel talks about the tea left to rot on the docks, Brooke and Will talk about the ships having to turn back in both New York and Philadelphia. 

And he knows Arthur is going to be very, very upset. 

And Alfred doesn't leave Virginia much these days, but he feels drawn North now. 

He writes Samantha a letter.

 **Boston, MA- November 1773**  
Samantha just wants to do what Will had done. All his British tea agents had been made to resign from their positions. 

But they'd tried that and failed, and now they had three ships of tea out in the Harbor.

They wanted to just send them back, but the Governor was refusing to let the ships be sent back without paying the taxes first. 

 **Boston, MA- December 16, 1773**  
Alfred is in Boston for this meeting, and Samantha feels absurdly proud when she introduces him to Sam Adams. 

Her proud smile slips when Sam Adams announces that Governor Hutchinson has refused to let the tea be sent back again. 

The rest of the night is a blur- she doesn't remember putting on the disguises and the walk to the harbor. 

She does remember Alfred calling her name softly, mischief sparkling in his eyes as he gestured toward one of the chests of tea.

Sam lifts her chin. "I'll take no tea,"  _And I'll follow no king_  remains unsaid, but it's understood anyway because Alfred's mouth thins for a moment before he smiles again.

"Help me throw the crate off," America says.

They pick it up, balancing the weight between them, and then they heave it overboard.

They throw the first crate of tea off the Dartmouth together and watch as it sinks beneath the water of the harbor.

A new scar opens across her shoulders that night and gets blood all over her sheets.

 **Boston, MA- March 1774**  
Alfred chooses to stay in Boston for the time being, and when the Intolerable Acts are passed, he's glad he did. 

Samantha gets sick. Horribly, awfully, sick. 

It reminds him of her childhood, the nights spent awake at her bedside, terrified that Sam would stop breathing in her sleep. She had only done it a few times, but it had been terrifying. 

Ginny sends his mail up to Boston, and Alfred throws anything from Arthur straight into the fire.

 **Boston, MA- May 13, 1774**  
"It won't be safe to stay in Boston for much longer," Connie points out. Foster's looking out the window at the soldiers in the city. 

Alfred sighs and scrubs a hand through his hair. "There's nothing to be done about it. Samantha's too unstable to move. We can't go to Virginia, because that's the first place Arthur will look for me."

 **Boston, MA- June 1774**  
Alfred has to give Samantha nineteen stitches in her back the day the Intolerable Acts go into effect. 

Her shoulders are a mess of scar tissue and still healing wounds and Alfred is _furious_ with Arthur.

Arthur's a damned fool if he thought this would make Boston bend to his will, if he thought other colonies would side with him.

Arthur  _had_  to know closing the port was a mistake. He was punishing the entire city of Boston-not just the Sons of Liberty, not to mention uniting the colonies.

Uniting colonies who hadn't been able to move out fast enough, who could never fully stand each other, even as children. 

They couldn't stand each other, but the day the Port Act goes into effect flags were placed at half-mast, bells were tolled, and houses were draped in mourning all across the thirteen colonies.

Arthur had made the mistake of giving them a common enemy. 

 **Boston, MA- June 1774**  
Samantha is at least doing better now. Alfred can still see her ribs, even though recently she's been eating and keeping it down.

He can still see her spine all too clearly, and the raised scars along her back-

Alfred gets a lot of letters from the others. Will and Brooke were talking about an intercolonial congress, and the rest of them were mad enough that they would do it.

_If he can take Mass's government then he could take mine-_

_I already lost my charter once, I refuse to have it taken away again-_

_Is this even legal by the constitution-_

**Philadelphia, PA- September 5, 1774**  
"Scarlett's not coming?" Alfred asks. 

Daniel crosses his arms over his chest. "No. She's been having trouble with the Indians lately. She needs the Brits to back her up."

It's obviously a sore point, so Alfred drops it. 

"Right, so let's begin,"

 **GA- September 1774**  
"Ah, dear Scarlett, beautiful as ever." Governor Wright presses a kiss to one of her gloved hands as Scarlett smiles politely. "This shade of silver contrasts marvelously with your hair."

"Governor, I thought we might discuss the Continental Congress?"

Wright frowns. "Scarlett, I thought we had put this treasonous nonsense behind us?"

The string of pearls around her throat suddenly feels constricting.

Her brothers are at that meeting.

Wright seems to realize flat out saying treason was a misstep and uses the band beginning to play as an excuse to change the subject. "Enough of that. May I have this dance, Scarlett?"

Scarlett nods, a quick, jerky unladylike motion.

After dancing a few steps of the minuet, skirts swirling around her feet, she asks about the Continental Congress again.

"Would it be so wrong to just hear them out?"

Wright scowls at her. "Hear who out? Patrick Henry, who wants to separate from Great Britain, our mother country? Or John Jay and his ilk, wanting to pressure Parliament when they have done nothing wrong? Or the delegates from Massachusetts, who believe that throwing  _three hundred and forty-two_  chests of tea into the harbor is a proper way to express one's displeasure?"

Scarlett's steps falter at the anger in his voice. "Governer-"

"Enough, Scarlett. Politics are no place for a young lady such as yourself."

She blinks, too shocked to protest as he leaves.

 **Philadelphia, PA- September 1774**  
The Carolinas stick together. One does not go where the other cannot follow, a vow made in the heat of summer when they were one and the same- one Carolina, not two.

It's better when Scarlett is there. She was a fighter, no matter how hard her governors and culture tried to smother it out of her with petticoats and politeness and the deadly idea that women were only meant to be pretty. She is the one who knows which fights they can win, which ones they can't.

It's odd, watching their delegates argue and debate instead of doing it themselves.

Still, there was something familiar about Will cursing at Brooke because she had used an entire container of ink to do rough sketches of the proceedings, and Ginny grimacing at her coffee. 

 **Philadelphia, PA- September 1774**  
"Do you support independence?" Sam asks Will one night.

Will shrugs. "I don't support it. Independence means a war because England won't just let dad go, and war means fighting, and I'm a pacifist."

Will pauses, then continues, "Besides we're no match for them anyway."

"Why do you say that?"

"We have no standing army, we wouldn't have supplies to outfit one if we did, we have no money to pay these theoretical soldiers, and England has had centuries to perfect his fighting; we've had half a war and less than fifty years."

 **Philadelphia, PA- October 20, 1774**  
They all agree to the Continental Association. Alfred feels bizarrely proud. 

These are his kids. They'd spent their childhoods bickering and fighting amongst themselves, but here they are, agreeing and well. 

They're still bickering. But they've all bonded on the common ground of hating England, so at least there's that. 

 **Philadelphia, PA- October 26, 1774**  
It's strange that they all feel almost sad when the Continental Congress dismisses until next year.

Goodbyes are said forlornly, and hugs are abundant as colonies pack up to go back to their own homes.

 **Cambridge, MA- February 1, 1775**  
"Is there really going to be a war?" Foster asks her. 

Samantha swallows. "I don't know, Foster."

Around them, the provincial congress plans the defensive preparations for war with England. 

 **London, England- February 9, 1775**  
Arthur doesn't have the words to express his fury. Parliament had officially declared that one of the colonies- Massachusetts, that hateful little place that had caused so much grief over the years- was in a state of rebellion. 

 _Alfred_ , the ungrateful brat, was in a state of rebellion. They were preparing for war as if they stood a chance. 

Arthur books passage on the next ship heading to the colonies.

 **Virginia- March 23, 1775**  
"Give me liberty or give me death!" Patrick Henry cries. 

He doesn't realize the twin personifications of his colony have been listening to his speech, that they hear him say those famous words, that it will echo in their minds for days and weeks and months. 

 **Virginia- April 3, 1775**  
"It's called a  _restraining_  act." Samantha bites out. "They aren't even trying to pretend that we're equal anymore."

Adam is pacing. "They're pissed because the boycott  _worked_ \- trade fell so sharply they lost money."

"And now they're saying we can't trade with anyone but them, the boycott didn't help us!" Samantha replies. 

"But it did! This is another violation of our rights, another straw to break the camel's back. The Revolution is inevitable."

 **Boston, MA- April 18, 1775**  
Samantha knows what the two lanterns hanging in the church steeple mean for Boston, for the whole damned country. 

_One if by land, two if by sea...._

Dawes and Revere are likely already gone, off to warn the people. 

Adam agrees to watch out for Foster, and she saddles her own horse. Nantucket came rather cheap for a horse- he's half Arabian, but no one can tell what the other half is, and he's... fiery, to say the least. His former owner referred to him as a 'bastard of a horse, in more ways than one.'

But Nan's quick, and he'll get her to Concord in no time. Something important is about to happen, and she needs to be there to see it. 

 **Middlesex County, MA- April 19, 1775**  
Sam has never been in a battle. She's been in fights, and she had been there to see the Massacre. She's seen a lot of the years- the business in Salem and the aftermath of Indian raids, but she's never been in a battle. 

She's nervous, and she's lucky her hands don't shake as the American Militia and the British Regulars stare each other down. 

No one moves. 

The shot makes her jump- head turning to figure  _who, who did it_ -

But it's too late. 

The revolution starts with the shot still echoing in the air.

 

**Author's Note:**

> notes are too long to put in here so here's the link:   
> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rMK82ToQQfdvHm5EJW4kqU631fXxCq1qjpfJUF4pLxM/edit?usp=sharing


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